Wednesday, 31 January 2018

It’s
Wine and Chocolate time again! This time I’m talking to my long-time writing
friend, Sally Jenkins, about her new
book. Welcome Sally and do help yourself to some wine. And a chocolate or two,
of course. First of all, tell me,

How did you first come to
write?

I
feel I should say that I’ve always wanted to write but in fact I didn’t catch the
bug until I was in my mid-thirties. At that point I realised magazines paid for
readers’ letters and I thought, I can do that! And so I did.

From
there I took a correspondence course with The Writers’ Bureau and started
having articles published. Then I tried my hand at short stories for women’s
magazines and competitions, with some success. In the background I had a few
novel writing attempts that dried up after three to four chapters. Eventually,
I managed to complete a whole novel and sent it off the Romantic Novelists’
Association New Writers’ Scheme (NWS) – and got a big thumbs down! I realised romance
wasn’t my ‘thing’ and switched genres to grip-lit (psychological thriller meets
commercial women’s fiction). It was the right thing to do because my next novel
won the Ian Govan Award and was published on Kindle and in paperback. At that
point I felt like a real novelist!

What genre do you write
in?

I
am intrigued about how our past impacts our present and future lives. In my
fiction I like to make this impact chilling. In my first novel, Bedsit
Three, the upbringing of one of the characters drives his destructive
behaviour and in The
Promise there are serious repercussions for something the heroine did three
decades earlier. I also write straight commercial women’s fiction.

What are you currently
working on?

I’m
juggling a couple of strands of my writing life at the moment. The
Promise has just been published and I’m deep into online and real life
promotion. It’s been described as a ‘web of intrigue’ and a ‘fast-paced
psychological thriller’ and I’m devising an author talk that, among other
things, teaches the audience how to make money out of murder! (That sounds a fascinating talk, Sally! Would love to be in your
audience when you do it.)

I’m
also working on the first draft of my third grip-lit novel and I have a
commercial women’s fiction novel on submission to agents.

Do you have a dedicated
working space?

Yes
and no. I have taken over our smallest bedroom, so I can leave papers,
notebooks, boxes of books etc. strewn everywhere but it is not a dedicated writing space. Three days a week I work
from home for a multinational IT consultancy and so I have to have my
work-supplied laptop on my desk alongside my own PC. But once my IT working day
is done I close the laptop and jump back into my preferred role of writer! The
room and desk are usually a mess and I did consider tidying up before I took
the photo – but then decided that would be dishonest and time-wasting, so you
see it warts and all!

What sort of books do you
read for pleasure? Do you have favourite author?

I
read lots of different things. I coordinate a library book group once a month
and that often pushes me out of my comfort zone. There are thirteen of us and
the library struggles to find books which have sufficient copies, so we don’t
choose our books – they are thrust upon us! (When I was a member of a book club, finding
the right quantity of books was always a problem for our library too .)This year we have
struggled through The Ragged Trousered
Philanthropists which was written a hundred years ago and focusses on the
life of the poor before socialism, the NHS and the welfare state. We have
grazed on Agatha Christie and also tried the more literary Anne Enright with The Green Road. Outside of the group I
read a lot of psychological thrillers. I still meet up with the romance authors
I met during my time with the RNA NWS and I enjoy reading their work too.

Favourite
author? That’s a tough question but if pushed I would name two – P.D. James and
Mo Hayder.

Besides writing, what is
your other passion?

I
have three other passions – public speaking, bell ringing and
walking. I joined a Speakers’ Club around four years ago to give me the skills
to promote myself as a writer. I’m still not a great orator but have bags more
confidence and no longer run a mile at the thought of addressing an audience.
And I’m vice president of the Speakers’ Club now!

I
started ringing church bells at the age of 14 and have continued ever since.
It’s a great hobby involving physical and mental effort as well as team work.
Bell ringers are generally a friendly bunch and always make newcomers welcome.

I
find walking (especially long walks in the countryside) relaxing. My mind
wanders and sometimes great plot ideas pop into my head. Then I have to make my
husband stop walking for a minute so I can make a note – many of my best ideas
have been lost in the ether because I didn’t write them down!

A
man has been stabbed. A woman is bloodstained. The nightmares from her teenage
years have begun again for Olivia Field just as she is preparing to marry.
Ex-convict, Tina is terminally ill. Before she dies, the care of her younger,
psychologically unwell brother, Wayne must be ensured. So Tina calls in a
promise made to her thirty years ago in a prison cell. A promise that was
written down and placed with crucial evidence illustrating a miscarriage of
justice in a murder case. Tina believes Olivia is perfectly placed to provide
the care Wayne needs, but to do so, Olivia must be forced to cancel her own
wedding and wreck the lives of those close to her. Tina's terrible blackmail
demands put Olivia's entire future and, ultimately, her freedom under threat.
The Promise is a fast-paced psychological thriller told from several third
person viewpoints. The novel explores the lengths to which people are prepared
go in order to protect those they love and the impossibility of ever fully escaping
our past actions.

It
sounds fascinating, Sally, and I’m sure it will do well as this kind of
thriller is enormously popular. Thanks for your time and do have another
chocolate before you go!